In this case, the error prompted the pacemaker to go into "backup programme mode", says Moe, and it began pacing her heart at a default 70 beats per minute with a heightened impulse. Think of it like pressing the wrong end of the rocker in a long row of light switches. #Nasa news today cosmic rays softwareBut the report explained that some of these bits had reversed, or flipped, altering the data and causing a software error. Inside the pacemaker's computer memory, data is stored in the form of bits – often referred to as "ones and zeroes". "That's where I learned about the bit flips," recalls Moe, who is now a senior consultant at cyber-security firm Mandiant. Once she was discharged from hospital, she received a detailed report from her pacemaker's manufacturer about what had happened. Moe's frightening experience with her pacemaker happened in 2016. Plus, since giant ejections from the sun can sometimes send huge waves of particles towards Earth, what's called space weather, an unnerving prospect looms: we could see much more disruption to computers than we're used to during a massive geomagnetic storm in the future. Not least because, with the continuing miniaturisation of microchip technology, the charge required to corrupt data is getting smaller all the time, meaning it is actually getting easier for cosmic rays to have this effect. From a vote-counting machine that added thousands of non-existent votes to a candidate's tally, to a commercial airliner that suddenly dropped hundreds of feet mid-flight, injuring dozens of passengers.Īs human society only becomes more dependent on digital technology, it's worth asking how big a risk cosmic rays pose to our way of life. These incidents, called single-event upsets, are rare and it can be impossible to be sure that cosmic rays were involved in a specific malfunction because they leave no trace behind them.Īnd yet they have been singled out as the possible culprits behind numerous extraordinary cases of computer failure. But ionising radiation, including rays of protons blasted towards us by the sun, can also be the cause. When computers go wrong, we tend to assume it's just some software hiccup, a bit of bad programming. The theory is that, upon impact, it caused an electrical imbalance that altered the computer's memory – and ultimately changed her understanding of the life-saving technology inside her forever. Data stored inside the pacemaker's computer, so crucial to its functioning, had somehow got corrupted.Īnd for Moe, the prime suspect that she says most likely sparked this unsettling episode was a cosmic ray from outer space: a chain of subatomic particles slamming into one another in the Earth's atmosphere, like balls colliding on a snooker table, with one eventually careering into her pacemaker's built-in computer mid-flight. A pacemaker technician soon found the problem. When Moe arrived at a nearby hospital, doctors pored over her. Had the plane been any further from Amsterdam, the pilot would have made an emergency landing at another airport, she was told. She knew immediately that something was wrong with her pacemaker, the small medical device implanted in her chest that used electrical impulses to steady her heartbeat.Ĭould one of the wires that connected the pacemaker to her heart have got damaged? Or come loose? Moe alerted the cabin crew, who at once arranged for an ambulance to be ready and waiting for her at the airport. The cyber-security researcher was on a plane, about 20 minutes from its destination, Amsterdam, when it started. Convulsing with the rhythm of a vigorous heartbeat. She looked down and the muscle, just to the left of her breastbone, was visibly pulsating.
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